The World Over September 16, 2021 | Papal Posse with Raymond Arroyo: POPE: Pastoral NOT Political

and pope francis made headlines on his return flight from an apostolic visit to hungary in slovakia this week the pope spoke out on everything from denying communion to politicians to certain unvaccinated cardinals at the vatican here to analyze these stories and more is the papal posse editor-in-chief of the catholicthing.org robert royal and canon lawyer and priest of the archdiocese of new york father gerald murray thank you gentlemen for being here i want to start with pope francis's rather pointed comments on that return flight from slovakia regarding what he calls vaccine deniers here he is on the plane he says even in the college of cardinals there are some vaccine deniers and one of them poor man is in hospital with the virus it's an irony of life now there are a couple of inaccuracies here that i should point out before i get your reactions first i assume he's referring to cardinal raymond burke who was the the subject of the question that preceded this burke is morally a pro posed to vaccines made from human stem cell lines i don't think he's anti-vaxx and he's been out of the hospital for two weeks but we'll leave it there father jerry what do you make of this sort of veiled comment here well i'm glad colonel burke is out of the hospital i'm sure the pope is too now the question here has to do is it legitimate to engage in a boycott of a vaccine because you object uh morally to the way it's produced or tested and the holy see has determined and i think this is in line with good moral theology that there's only a remote cooperation and it's not it's not formal it's in other words you're not guilty of a crime or a sin by receiving a vaccination on the other hand people who are catholic and pro-life do have a right to boycott a product that they think should be manufactured in a different way and i agree it should be and their boycotting of that then requires that they take other means to avoid getting sick and uh with covert and and spreading it so um you know there are a lot of uh questions here at heart uh and when the pope refers to cardinal burke uh it's true he's out of the hospital thank god he recovered and is on the road to recovery now uh but um you know let's just say this uh people are not obliged to be vaccinated the holy see said that earlier this year i believe in vaccines and i think people should be vaccinated i certainly was but if people want to protest they have to you know take other means not to try to get sick or spread the disease bob your your reaction when you heard this i'll tell you uh it this blew up on social media and and i saw an avalanche of you know uh negative appraisals of the papal comments here yeah as much as we know that there have been conflicts between cardinal burke and pope francis generally speaking the pope has kind of avoided these uh direct open criticisms of cardinal burke and i think that this was a very unfortunate way to refer to him as a denier i actually looked up the italian of this a negationist he says we have negotiating in in even in the the college of cardinals and you know that term is a term that i really would prefer that was was restricted to other uses because it originally started out as people who were holocaust deniers people who were obviously denying something true that had actually taken place and the people that the pope is referring to as father rightly said some people want to be more prophetic and they know that these certain vaccines have been developed up and tested on uh fetal cells from what appears to have been an aborted fetus and so they want to protest for moral reasons other people won't take it for for health reasons i i know people who are not even catholic who are worried about these obvious side effects that have been reported sometimes blood clots or heart inflammation or they just for one reason another want to wait until the vaccine has been proven to be perfectly safe so you know just to categorize everybody as a kind of a denier i think that would be better to if you want to be pastoral we need to leave spaces there are so many contentious points about the world that we're in right now we need to have a little bit of um tolerance for one another who may react differently than we do to this very troubling situation well and this is the vexing thing about those comments and and a lot of what we're hearing surrounding this vaccine uh uh debate and the polarization in the church the church should be a place where that is welcoming of everybody common ground a common home for people that might even disagree on whether they should take a vaccine or what the tax rate should be or on climate change but when these things are elevated to the level of dogma while dogma is demoted to the level of prudential judgments we have a problem now also on the plane bob and you had an interesting transition there pope francis was asked about denying communion to pro-abortion politicians he said this what should the pastor do be a shepherd do not go around condemning but be a pastor but is he also a pastor of the excommunicated yes he is the pastor and he must be a shepherd with god's style and god's style is closeness compassion and tenderness i don't want to particularize the united states because i don't know the details well i give the principle be a pastor but if he comes out of the shepherding of the church immediately he becomes a politician father your reaction as a pastor and doesn't canon law have something to say about the reception of communion as well yes this is a very unfortunate and confused answer by the pope for many reasons number one people who are in favor of abortion like president biden have not been excommunicated excommunication is a canonical penalty as far as we know he's never been excommunicated uh but canon 915 regulates the behavior of catholics uh as concerns giving scandal by endorsing grave moral disorder sinful behavior by engaging in in their lives president biden clearly supports wants to pay for expand and promote the killing of unborn children in the united states and throughout the world that makes him what we call canonically a public sinner and his the good of his soul and of the community demands that he not be given holy communion now the pope also implies quite clearly that pastors can never be condemnatory well that's just not true you have to condemn sin for crying out loud we've just gone through 20 years of the most horrendous sins by clerics committed on innocent lay people i'm referring to the sex abuse case and the only thing that pastors are required to do is condemn it not treat it as simply something to be adjusted and in fact it scandalizes people and this has happened for many cases where bishops have more sympathy for the abuser than for the abused and they don't condemn those priests we need to condemn remember a shepherd has a crook in order to corral the sheep and pull them in the right direction and at the end of the shepherd's crook is a pointed end in order to both protect it from the wolves but also the sheep that don't want to get up and move in the right direction you got to poke them now this is a caricature of christianity as being the religion of smiles happy talk and everyone gets along can we just work everything out christianity consists of god's law being lived effectively for the motive of loving god and our neighbor and when people publicly stop doing that and lead people into sin we both condemn their behavior and call them back to repentance that's what a pastor does bob we should we should stipulate and it didn't get a lot of coverage the pope also said that abortion is murder whoever has an abortion kills no half words take a look at an embryology of uh medical students the third week after conception all the organs are there there's even dna it's a human life the human life must be respected the principle is so clear so he did say that but then he goes and goes on to discuss his own experience saying he's never denied communion to anyone is this a good enough reason to suggest that no situation would justify the denial of communion to a person well i want to say amen first of all to my colleague father murray because i i think he said quite eloquently all the things that need to be said here look the the the the uh puzzling thing about francis with regard to abortion is this uh you you quoted all those powerful things that he said and he repeated something that i think is stronger than any pope has ever said about abortion he says it's like hiring a hitman to solve a problem and he's excommunicated the mafia in italy because he hit men are immoral men now i would like to just go a little bit further with what father murray was saying about being a pastor being a pastor does not mean being a patsy and here in the united states we have now had decades of people so-called being in dialogue and trying to be pastoral toward politicians who have gone astray and we have nothing to show for it and i would even like to go a little bit further and say that i'm happy in a way that the holy father says well i don't know the particulars in the country like the united states about the the individuals but look joe biden like it or not is the leader of the most powerful country in the world and he is a rome a prominent roman catholic and what he says and does and what he is saying and doing is seeking as our individual states are seeking to restrict abortion he's trying to institute him even on a wider scale and have our tax dollars pay for it that situation cannot simply be ignored it can't be wished away as if some further dialogue or pastoral approach is going to make a difference look the the secular world understands that even if the po if the pope excommunicated or the bishop ex communicated the president he'd still be the president of the united states and he'd have powers but the fact that the church would actually take a stand would make a difference to world opinion and we could we should hope that the pope if he really believes that this is murder in the united states we have murdered 65 million of our own children then he should be as as as virulent and advocating against that practice as he is advocating for uh steps to stop climate change and and and for migrants etc it's very puzzling that you can have that powerful statement that this is murder and yet not feel that there has to be any strong reaction to it the pope made uh an historic visit to hungary as well on this trip uh he met for 40 minutes with prime minister viktor orban at the conclusion of the international eucharistic congress in budapest now prime minister orban has been criticized for strict immigration policies and in budapest the pope said this how distant is the god who quietly reigns on the cross from the false god that we want to reign with power in order to silence our enemies how different is christ who presents himself with love alone from all the powerful and winning messiahs worshiped by the world bob very quickly some have seen that as a direct rebuke of orban uh who francis nacey is promoting that kind of populism that he's condemned often in the past yeah he also said in the in the course of that homily that the cross spreads its arms out to everyone and in that column that i wrote earlier this week that you just referred to what i said is yes the cr christ and god does reach out to everyone but that is not an immigration policy no country on earth can reach out to any everyone in that sense of being being able to welcome anyone who wants to come to it so um i think orban has made a very interesting distinction that to try in his particular circumstances he isn't necessarily saying that even every european country needs to do this but he wants to preserve the historic christianity of hungary and hungary has been invaded several times by muslims in the course of history so that you know they they have a sense of this from their own past it is not as the pope said defensiveness for people to want to preserve their own cultures muslim immigration we have to say this i think frankly is is a particular problem because of what muslims believe they re they unite church and state in religion and state in a way that western societies do not we do not have the same problem for example with hispanic immigration or asian immigration the muslim religion itself has some particular elements that one has to handle very carefully and i think that that you could criticize aspects of what orban is trying to do but for his country uh and i would like to actually see the pope encourage the the there are certain countries in which to in the attempt to preserve the christian christianity of the people it's necessary to be careful about immigration father jerry uh is it wrong for a secular leader an elected leader to do what he feels necessary to protect his own country and his people i mean mass migration is not a requirement for for good government and i mean we're seeing these uh nationalist leaders emerge patriotic leaders some might call them uh matteo salvini in italy uh dedicating the people to the virgin at political rallies and things uh what's happening here and why why are we as a church crashing in on politics and a political vision for people let them vote well we do believe in the self-government uh you know god made us free so there to exercise freely our right to elect our leaders is is a good thing the church recognizes that now the church also recognizes and the catechism the catholic church says it the state has a right to regulate who enters into that state which foreigners are allowed in and allowed to stay because we have to face it and this is what's being seen right now in the mediterranean basin because of modern transportation means people from all over the world can get themselves to north africa and then pay money to get on a boat and land in the european union and then be transported to a variety of countries given housing welfare benefits and the promise that they'll be allowed to stay so this is basically an open door policy which is transforming those countries and when people in those countries vote leaders who disagree with that that's just the will of the people there's nothing immoral about saying we're not going to take in an unlimited number of immigrants into our country because quite frankly that would change the nature of the country um you know as bob said do people who support the existing governmental structures want to live there or do they want to come gain a majority and vote vote to change the country people have a right to defend their democratic yeah well bob quoted that uh that excerpt from the homily you know the arms of christ are spread wide to everyone it's a welcoming of everyone apparently not vaccine deniers but we'll leave that on the side for the moment uh pope francis we recently met with the bishops of france during their periodic ad limina visits and the pope's moto proprio restricting the use of the traditional latin mass came up according to reports the pope warned them that the old right must not be used as an obstacle to the acceptance of vatican ii saying limits must be established at the same time superiors of the latin mass communities in france have signed a letter appealing to the french bishops saying they feel suspected marginalized and banished father jerry your thoughts on all of this is the old right guilty of causing division in france or elsewhere and will this appeal for mercy garner any response do you think well as i've said before on this program and also written uh and in my column the permission that pope benedict gave for the wide celebration of the traditional latin mass was an act of wonderful charity and it promoted unity in the church because people were no longer required to go to the followers of archbishop lefebvre who are not canonically regular in order to be able to participate in the old mass now the pope seems to think and i think he's profoundly wrong on this that uh at liking or finding beautiful the old mass means you reject the second vatican council why is that i think he's saying that the second vatican council is embodied in the new mass well the reality is during the whole second vatican council the traditional latin mass was celebrated without a problem and after the council the changes in the mass originally were quite modest and were beneficial and included readings in the vernacular but then pope paul vi created a concilium which rewrote the mass against virulent objections from number of the cardinals and others and the pope went along with it and we got what is called the novus ordo this is a different order of mass pope francis in fact in an interview with the spanish radio program called this a kind of a new right he said it was like one of the eastern rights um this this is all very very upsetting because there's only one latin rite and it has two expressions the traditional and then the newer and pope benedict's solution was perfect those who want one or the other go to it the idea that somehow everybody who likes the old mass is suspected of not being a catholic who accepts a sacrificing counsel that's unwarranted that's not seen in the evidence so i hope the pope will learn that pope benedict's actions produce peace because right now what's going on this is a nascent war in the church between those who want to defend the tradition they love and the pope who seems to say by loving tradition somehow you're not loving the church i don't agree with that [Music] archbishop of liverpool malcolm mcmahon said he supports a national synod bob being held in the church in england and wales as we head toward 2023 to that synod of bishops on the senate of synods uh the idea of national synods seem to be catching on what do you make of this and given the way germany is headed down it's an auto path why would the church in england and wales head in the same direction well i think it's inviting a lot of problems because obviously activists are the people who come to the fore when you open up the doors like this that uh that bishop i think used an unfortunate expression he said that everything is on the table right well we have a 2 000 year old church and quite a few things have been taken off the table over the course of those 2000 years and to create the expectations somehow that whatever people may be bringing forward and in many cases these are catholic people have not been formed deeply in the faith they've been formed by a post-christian culture let's be quite blunt about that and he you know he cites some other uh uh examples of people who are beginning to work on this and one there's a group called root and branch that he mentions and he says well they're just a small part and that has to be contextualized well if you look up what that group believes in it's the usual stuff it's women's priests it's gays it's even a non-hierarchical non-status church in other words the the lines of authority are really even going to be blurred so um look there are a lot of possibilities when you start studying the cinada way it is at least in theory could open up some goods but given what where we are at in the church right now with the divisions that exist and just some of the wild things that people are proposing and it's not only in germany i think it's also in in england and here in the united states um creating expectations that all these things are somehow going to be get yet again uh gone through and assessed i think it's a very dangerous moment no the vision seems to be i know some things are off the table but let's remake the table you know it's that kind of uh reimagining the future before we run out of time i need both your thoughts on a recent column by jesuit father thomas reese on september 7th he wrote quote six suggestions for the catholic bishops document on the eucharist one reads the document should emphasize that the purpose of the eucharist is not to bring christ down on the altar so that we can worship him if you want to worship jesus go to benediction the ultimate purpose of the eucharist is not to change the bread and wine into the body and blood of christ but to transform those at the eucharist into the body of christ so that they can continue his mission in the world um father jerry for the bishops to take this advice i think they'd have to be writing a document on eucharistic heresies but is this in any way correct eucharistic theology uh this is terrible eucharistic theology this has uh this place 95 sounds heretical uh his use of the word purpose uh gives him an out because he's you're not talking about the nature of the eucharist but the purpose of it but i even there he's mistaken the purpose of the eucharist meaning the celebration of the holy mass is so that the priest can change the bread and wine into the body and blood of christ that is an act of worship by the way because the priest and the community together join christ's offering of himself in an unbloody renewal of the sacrifice of calvary to god the father we it's an act of worship um now for him to say that he also says we should no longer use the word transubstantiation in that article well he's just throwing out the council of trent and the fourth ladder in council this is part of the dynamic that bob spoke about earlier the expectation has been created under this pontiff that you can say anything you want in contradiction of catholic teaching and you won't be disciplined you'll get away with it the only people who don't seem to have that privilege are the ones that like the latin mass this is unfair if there was ever an ideological current entering in and or usurping doctrinal fidelity it's an article like what father has just written because the holy eucharist is jesus present in a hidden but real form and it is our greatest joy to be able to walk into a catholic church and say the pre-celebrated mass the holy eucharist is in the tabernacle i know that my god is with me to deny things and say we've got to transform the people into the body of christ the people are the mystical body of christ but they receive the holy communion the eucharistic body of christ in order to grow in holiness so this is a very confused person i'm very sad that i went to jesuit high school i studied under the jesuits the gregorian a jesuit if a jesuit had taught this to me in high school he would have been in big trouble because this is very clearly coming close to denying the doctrine of the faith and he should withdraw this article and write a new one professing the true faith now robert what's reese's end game here very quickly i have a minute uh i mean didn't he i didn't realize he was a consultant for the usccb on their upcoming document yeah he's written before about the eucharist in this basic vein and when it comes down to it one of those six principles that he wants to suggest to the bishops is that anyone who presents themselves because they believe enough in christ that they want to be they want to be receiving the eucharist ought to be able to receive it actually this is kind of reflects something that the holy father has said according to aojana scaffordi his bizarre friend has said that anyone who comes forward will receive the eucharist um we have a much different uh tradition in the catholic church we have an articulated idea that when you come forward for communion it's because you're fully in communion with you want to be fully in communion with christ and come closer and closer to him um i think that this is a kind of a reorientation his father was saying that just something that has never really been part of our tradition and maybe that's the end game that you're looking for who knows no no this is the same this is the same old heresy that mother angelica got in trouble for condemning uh you know almost two decades ago same routine different day a gentleman we will leave it there you can find commentary by robert royal and father gerald murray at thecatholicthing.org thank you both talk to you soon

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Length: 25min 54sec (1554 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021